SFP+ optical transceiver points to expanded 10G fiber footprint

Optical and laser components specialist Oclaro (NASDAQ: OCLR) will reportedly sample a standards-compliant, multi-rate tunable SFP+ optical transceiver in the fourth quarter of this year. The module is designed to supports rates between 9.95 and 11.3 Gbps and is tunable across the entire C-band with 96 channels on the ITU-T 50-GHz grid, Oclaro says.

The transceiver module complies with the revision 4.1 of the SFF-8431 specification for “Enhanced Small Form Factor Pluggable Module SFP+.” The tunable SFP+ module supports PIN or APD optical interfaces and limiting or linear electrical interfaces based on customer requirements. It also features an Oclaro-designed low-power tunable TOSA based on a proprietary monolithically Integrated Laser Mach-Zehnder (ILMZ) chip.

“I expect the volume of 10G DWDM SFP+ transceivers to grow significantly over the coming years. The advent of tunable 10G SFP+ transceivers in the market will accelerate that trend as tunability is critical for minimizing inventory and enabling flexible rapid service provisioning,” asserts Andrew Schmitt, principal analyst, optical at Infonetics Research. “This is an important step towards meeting the world’s growing bandwidth demands with space-, power-, and cost-efficienct network solutions.”

“We are leveraging the technology building blocks and chip designs that enabled our leadership in 10G tunable MSA transponders and tunable XFP (in particular the monolithically integrated laser Mach-Zehnder design) to offer this standards-compliant 10G DWDM Tunable SFP+ transceiver,” commented Tadayuki Kanno, president, Oclaro Japan, Inc. and general manager of the company's Modules & Devices Business Unit. “As a leading supplier of tunable laser and transceiver solutions, Oclaro has developed an extensive product portfolio and the addition of the standards-compliant 10G DWDM Tunable SFP+ transceiver strengthens this technology leadership.”